ethnography in action

Some time ago I was talking with my roommate and we were probably drunk because I was discussing my ex-boyfriends and how most of them were total dickbags. After a litany of ludicrously white names like Terpsichorean Worthington III Esq., roommate decrees that my type is “Lacrosse Captain.” The term has now become a pretty nice meme between us, and what’s funniest about it to me is that basically “Lacrosse Captain” = WASP.

Full disclosure: I don’t know anyone who has played lacrosse and it wasn’t until I moved to New York that I found out what a WASP actually was. I knew what it stood for, but to me I just thought it was some kind of different notation of White Person. And when I look back at all the Lacrosse Captains, I realize that though their unifying WASPness connects them to me, they are dissimilar via region. This just adds another chapter to my unwritten thesis regarding sociological differences of identity in America based on region and the history thereof.

Here are three regional differences of American WASPs, based on gross essentialism:

1. Western WASP: has a lift pass; drinks beer to forget burden of bloodline and shameful lust
2. Southern WASP: family still owns plantation; drinks gin because it’s like that thing the coloreds did with cotton
3. East Coast WASP: boats are important i.e. they have a boat, wear boat shoes, and their family was on the Mayflower; drinks Scotch because it reminds them of the homeland

Oddly enough, a list of all the men I’ve ever dated is compiled here for some reason (hat tip).

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[…] and potatoes A few posts back I talked about one of my romantic archetypes, so studiously titled “Lacrosse Captain” by my roommate. This is not to say that I haven’t had others; there’s Doughy White Boy, […]